Multilingual worksheet

*** HARD HAT AREA ***

This practicum develops learning resources and materials related to the general study of Multilingualism.

These will help facilitate Foreign Language Learning and Topic:Multilingual Studies at Wikiversity. The first (but not last) Language Divisions are:

• English
• German
• Spanish
• French
• ...but there are many others!...

Don't feel bad because you don't speak English!

This worksheet is here as an aid (like a "scratchpad") to translators and students of planet-wide community-building and for establishing Transwiki-versity.

This practicum aims to create a master reference for the School of Language and Literature in the form of a local article Multilingualism.

Specific goals are to produce learning materials that will help to strengthen Wikiversity as an Online learning community. The principle that the learning community here will be open, accessible and free to all requires a multi-lingual aspect as a priority in its charter. To help meet this end, we are creating this ongoing Multilingual Practicum.

As Wikiversity grows, replicates and reproduces through various languages and cultures, the need for multiple language resource versions and translation services will increase. This practicum is being designed to help meet these already-obvious needs. The following pages explain the multilingual system on Wikiversity Beta:

• Wikiversity:Multilingualism

Mission Statement: In the Spirit of an Open Community with the Assumption of Good Faith, the Institute of Multilingual Studies will leave Matters of Policy to Higher Powers.

English Division Mission Statement: This practicum, though born here at the English language version of Wikiversity shall not be defined, constrained nor imposed as a standard but offered only as a model, pattern, suggestion or example to the Betas as they come online.

The Division shall be responsible for the English version of:

• Wikiversity:Translator's Handbook - A language-neutral general-purpose resource developed as an open collaborative project that grows along with Wikiversity's Betas.

HARD HAT AREA

We are taking it upon ourselves to build a local (English) version of Multilingualism, synchronously with beta projects, established, developing and future as a mirror of

Our main challenge is to work within a host / guest paradigm that promotes the understanding that native speakers of one language are non-native speakers of another. As members of the English Wikiversity, we hope to be faithful custodians for translation resourses for those who have little or no experience with English.

We will do this by Hosting:

• Wikiversity:Multilingualism/En (the host base)

and guest stations:

1. Wikiversity:Multilingualism/De
2. Wikiversity:Multilingualism/Es
3. Wikiversity:Multilingualism/Fr
4. Wikiversity:Multilingualism/Zh
5. Wikiversity:Multilingualism/Ar
6. etc.

and a special one:

• Wikiversity:Multilingualism/NEW for creating interfaces to new Wikiversity beta projects.

(under construction)

Schools: Media Studies | Linguistics | Computer Science | Language and Literature

Institute for Multilingual Studies

English Language

German

Chinese

Languages

Translation Department

Wikiversity_translations

Translator's Handbook

Wikiversity translations/Recruiting translators

Wikiversity translations/Training translators

Interlingual Beta Club

Category:Languages and Language families Category: Wikiversity translations

Wikiversity using a method similar to Wikipedia:Multilingual coordination.

This worksheet may be used as an outline to help develop a learning path for Wikiversity participants who want to become certified translator(s).

Practicum Reading List:

• Wikiversity translations (please start here)
• Wikiversity translations/De to En archive <- priority
• Wikiversity:Multilingualism/En (at beta.wikiversity.org)
• Wikiversity:Multilingualism/De (at beta.wikiversity.org)
• Multilingualism (Wikipedia article)
• Wikibooks:Languages bookshelf
• How to learn a language (Wikibooks)
• add some

See more in the Resources section below.

1. Computer Science learners studying Computer-assisted translation or Machine translation may also have contributions and a use for this worksheet.
2. Wikiversity the Movie may need some help with Wikiversity the Movie/multi-lingual
3. ...

See Wikiversity:Practicum - Guideline document for more on collaborations.

Develop some lists and tables:

We should decide if two-letter codes are enough to get a fairly comprehensive listing to start with. The following are somewhat arbitrarily selected as examples:

These are ISO 639-2 Alpha-2 codes. See List of ISO 639-2 codes for the complete list including Alpha-3 codes.

We're focusing on en-de and de-en to prime the Wikiversity:Multilingualism program.

Currently Wikiversity has seeded beta projects for English, Deutsch, Français, Kölsch, Norsk (bokmål) and 中文. We would do well to follow suit. Check (en), Template:De, (fr), ?, ?? (?) and Template:Zh.

SESSION/2006/10/19: Q) Do all languages have 2-letter codes? Are there some that have no codes at all? Is this a problem? Jade Knight
A) They may be unable to use some w:machine translation features, but certainly shall not exclude them from the mix. We ARE Human! CQ

18 Native Names:

中文 
Español 
English 
Português 
Русский 
日本語 
Deutsch 
한국어 
Français 
Italiano
Zazaki 
Polski 
Kurdî 
Română 
Nederlands 
Svenska 
Esperanto
عربي

This list is based on w:Language speaker data mostly from the Ethnologue estimate (1999).

Ranking # code Name in English | Native name:

1. zh Chinese | 中文
2. es Spanish | Español
3. en English | English
4. pt Portuguese | Português
5. ru Russian | Русский
6. ja Japanese | 日本語
7. de German | Deutsch
8. ko Korean | 한국어
9. fr French | Français
10. it Italian | Italiano
11. zz Zazaish | Zazaki
12. pl Polish | Polski
13. ku Kurdish | Kurdî
14. ro Romanian | Română
15. nl Dutch | Nederlands
16. sv Swedish | Svenska
17. eo Esperanto Esperanto
18. ar Arabic | عربي

It's a start.

The following languages are supported by MediaWiki and can be used as the default language for new Wikia sites, Wikiversity betas, your own language setting in Special:Preferences, or for interlanguage links when making translations.

The supported languages are also listed at list.org/i18n.html.

These language names are based on the MediaWiki names.php file.

need that Wikiversity:Multilingualism/NEW thingie

Now we make a table:

The goal of translation is to ensure that the source and the target texts communicate the same message.

We selected en, because that's our native language. Notice that when we scanned the whole table for instances of en, two vectors become evident:

1. The vertical vector - native
2. The diagonal vector - foreign

As native speakers of English, we are the custodians or the host of English as a source language. The pages in the verticle vector:

en-zh, en-es, ... en-de, etc. 

are written in English. They are for native English speakers wishing to learn a selected foreign language.

Conversly, the pages in the diagonal vector:

zh-en, es-en, ... de-en, etc. 

are written in foreign languages. Native English speakers now become visitors or the guest of the target language custodians.

The pages, en-de and de-en become mirror images of each other. They are translated, (not just transliterated) therefore display the same ideas in matching positions on each page. For example, the page title:

en-de - English-German Translation Guide
de-en - Deutsch-Englisch [Translation Guide/de]

I don't know how to say "Translation Guide" in German, so I indicate that I need some help from the German-speaking custodians of the de-en page.

Table still doesn't adequately demonstrate source / target or guest / host theory (which by the way has no documentation as yet). Perhaps you should back up and punt, Charley ;)

• Topic:Audio Engineering - Get help with Sound, Speech recording and Playback.
• Topic:News and Information services -> Wikiversity:Wikiversity and Wikinews services - announce this practicum
• [Wikiversity resource]

• Wikibooks:Languages bookshelf - A categorized index to a host of language learning Wikibooks
• [Wikimedia resource]

• Pen Pal Wiki - a Wikia site where we can experiment on live subjects
• Meta Collab Wiki - Wikia site where you will be an honored guest.
• Academia Wiki - *** HARD HAT AREA ***
• [external resource]

1. Category:Language Acquisition
2. [proposed category]